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Laminar flow in future airliner design

I was reading this story about laminar flow on future airliners at Flight Global, which said:
The target is to reduce the drag of the wing by up to 25% in cruise flight, which would translate to a total aircraft drag reduction between 5% and 6%. “There are little [other] chances aerodynamically to have such a big gain with just one technology,” he adds.

Which made me think, wouldn`t it make sense to also apply this to the fuselage? That is an area where the main problems (stated in article) with laminar flow, namely flexibility, would seem non-existent or much easier to fix, since I`m under the impression that fuselages don`t twist and flex like wings do. Is that area under investigation, or planned to be? Since it doesn`t have the flex problems of wings, it seems like it would be straight forward to look at a 100% laminar solution… and if a 60% laminar wing can achieve 25% reduction self-drag, extending laminar flow over the entire craft would seem to be able to achieve roughly 20% drag reduction globally, as opposed to the 6% that just a 60% laminar wing could contribute….???

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By: Snow Monkey - 28th July 2011 at 07:23

Too bad. Any idea if it would apply to lifting body fuselages, possibly with `aerodynamic features` as pictured in the article (between the laminar test sections and legacy wing portions) to prevent transverse/lateral air-flows to/from areas that aren`t suitable for laminar development?

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By: Amiga500 - 27th July 2011 at 06:40

Unfortunately the idea doesn’t carry over. 🙁

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